A few players missing on both sides

It seems like we’ve been ‘on the road’ a heck of a lot in recent weeks and a quick look back confirms that very feeling; having played 7 of the last 10 fixtures away from M11.

It seems only fitting in order to redress the balance, therefore, that this Sunday’s game is the first of three, back-to-back home games and that usually, or at least should, come with a sense of added optimism.

Personally, I am feeling positive…but, home-fixture wise at least, I’m still sort of plagued by the league defeat to Crystal Palace; a blow that came just 42 days after we registered a home, 0-0’er in the league also against Southampton.

I don’t think I’ll be alone in-wanting us to put those ‘home ghosts of recent past’ to bed with a good win on Sunday afternoon (2:00pm KO GMT)…

v Everton

Etihad Stadium

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 10/11).

Fluid 4-1-5-0 / 4-6-0 / 4-3-3:

______________________________________________

 

Sterling______________Jesus______________Mahrez

 

_________Gundogan______________Silva__________

 

_____________________Rodri____________________

Cancelo_________________________________Walker

 

___________Laporte____________Stones__________

 

 

____________________Ederson___________________

Subs: Steffen, Zinchenko, Ake, Dias, Fernandinho, Lavia, Edozie, Foden, Delap.

A few missing personnel and at least one ‘50/50 doubt’ makes predicting a 20-man, match-day squad even more difficult; not least trying to guess which EDS players might be included after they had a league fixture of their own in our country’s capital just the day before.

Ederson in net is the easiest one to forecast.

Similarly, I don’t think there’s a doubt about who our left & right-wing backs will be – Joao & Kyle – but there has been some debate in recent days about who might ‘get the nod’ in the middle of our defence. With some reports suggesting that both Stones & Laporte had more productive international breaks than Dias; other articles have pointed to the fact that Ruben has played more Manchester City minutes than his central defensive colleagues and that his manager may want to rest / not risk the Portuguese international ahead of our Champions League clash with PSG on Wednesday night. All of that weighed up, I am indeed going for a partnership of Aymeric & John tomorrow afternoon.

Rodders is the deeper-lying midfielder with a fluid, interchangeable, attacking 5 of Raheem, Ilkay, Gabriel, Bernardo & Riyad ahead of the Spaniard.

Zack is the reserve stopper; Oleksandr, Nathan & Ruben the defensive replacement options from the side. My best guess is that regulars Fernandinho & Phil, who might not be risked for the whole game following a midweek knock, will be joined by Romeo, Samuel & Liam as midfield / wing / attacking reserves in ‘the 9’.

Update - 21.11.2021: I've been informed that both Samuel Edozie & Liam Delap are out with long-term injures. Therefore, feel free to pick any other EDS players to slot in there...although our manager might not go with his full quota on the bench; something he has done before.

Notable absences:

-       Benjamin Mendy – Suspended by the club until further notice.

-       Jack Grealish – Recovering from ‘a knock’ and is unlikely to play in this fixture.

-       Kevin De Bruyne – Out with Covid-19 with a 10-day “isolation countdown” starting from 17.11.2021; whilst assuming also, after that, that he doesn’t suffer any after effects…

-       Ferran Torres – Out with a foot injury until around Christmas time.

Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?

Possibly resting Dias aside; of the players deemed 100% fit to start, I’d have to say that’s about our strongest available 11 and, so, yes.

I’ve always got doubts about which Riyad Mahrez we’re gonna see on the day and, of course, Raheem Sterling has been out of form for his club side, at least, for about 12 months now (some would say longer but I disagree and recall his good, start-of-season form last year). Therefore, if both players don’t perform well, then our visitors might be in for a slightly easier time of it than they would perhaps otherwise…and it’ll be, therefore, up to our more-central attackers to provide ‘the threat’.

But, as I say, ‘on paper’ that’s a very good side indeed and ‘fingers crossed’ they all perform well.

Result? Everton are having a fairly tough time of it recently; with a real dip in form after their season got off to a really good start. In ‘days of old’ – and long-serving Blues will know all too well what I mean here - this is the sort of game where we would often give a struggling side ‘lift up’ by suffering a “shock defeat”.

In fact, added to the often-uncertainty of how we (and other sides) respond following an international break, it did cross my mind the other day that we could be looking at that very scenario; especially against a side that has been known to ‘give us a bloody nose or two’.

However, they too are suffering quite a number of injuries to key personnel which is, no doubt, contributing to their current plight.

We might wobble in this match and / or we might struggle to break ‘em down for a time but I’m going for a home win in the end.

Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result…

Prediction: Win

Result: Won

(There was no pre-match blog posting for that game due to being away on holiday)

Expected weather conditions during the game: Crisp, sunny, chilly. Sky blue skies with some white, fluffy clouds will add to the ‘blue & white’ home fixture theme and fans might want to wrap up warm for it, as a brisk, northly wind whips over the stadium; making the official, mere-6C temperature, feel more like 2 or 3C, I’m sure. Beautiful British weather for a mid-November fixture, I would say.

In case you missed it, here's my recent piece on my assessment of our season so far.

 

Season assessment so far

As we enter our 3^rd – yes, THIRD – international break of the season even though we’re still-only in the early part of November; I thought it would be a useful time to ‘stop ‘n’ have a look’ at how we’ve faired so far, a season, which, turned just 12 weeks old at the weekend.

The Premier League

In some ways, our league campaign has started similar to last season; perhaps slightly better but it still feels like, as with the previous campaign, a little bit ‘spluttery & stuttery’ at times.

That might sound like a crazy statement to some having recorded two back-to-back 5-0 home victories in our 2^nd & 3^rd outings and while we currently sit 2^nd in the table, just 3 points off the leaders, Chelsea, and with the 3^rd-best goal difference in the league.

However, I think it’s fair to say that we’ve…‘done a City’ in terms of losing games where most Blues and pundits would otherwise have had us down for win - I’m thinking the 0-0 draw at home to Southampton and our more-recent 0-2 home defeat to Crystal Palace.

Once we’d reached ‘Gameweek 10’, we’d failed to win 4 of those 10 games; dropping 10 points from a possible 30 and seeing Chelsea take a 6-point lead, as well as gaining a far better goal difference lead over us.

But what a difference a week makes, hey?! ‘Gameweek 11’ saw Chelsea drop 2-points at home to Burnley and Liverpool lose at West Ham; throw-in an away derby day win for us and the end result is a healthy league position at this stage of the season; 4-points ahead of where we were at the same stage last season and with a 10-goal better goal difference than we had at that stage too.

So, ‘all in all’ league wise, “pretty good” / “not too bad at all” are probably the best ways to describe our situation at this stage, I would say.

The cups?

Well, we’re already out of one, would be a blunt way of putting it. But that wouldn’t truly reflect that particular situation, I would suggest.

With a side that included our No.2 keeper and 5 EDS players in the starting 11, we slammed Wycombe Wanderers 6-1 at home and only went out 5-3 on penalties away at in-form West Ham; having had 64% of the possession. Having won the competition a record-equalling 4 times in 4 seasons, it was sort of sad to see us exit the League Cup, I thought.

However, I can’t speak for every Blue, of course, but I found that my disappointment waned pretty quickly as I found myself rapidly catching up with reality; accepting that we really do have ‘bigger fish to catch’ now.

Speaking of which, as we take our third pause in domestic football, we find ourselves top of our Champions League group with just 2 games remaining at this stage of the competition. In fact, if we beat PSG at home in our next match, we’ll not only have progressed into the knock-out stages but will have secured ‘top spot’ too.

So, with no complacency whatsoever, of course, I think it’s safe for me to suggest that particular cup competition is going very well so far and we await, as do most Premier League sides, our opponents in the F.A. Cup 3^rd round, which is to be played at the weekend of the 8^th & 9^th January 2022.

Mushing it all together?

Let’s have a look at our overall results & form.

Played:17

L W W W W D W W L D W W W D* L W W – F43 A14

Key:

* 0-0 at full time / lost on penalties

Underlined result is a league game

Would there be a phrase to describe that set of results? If so, I think I’d go with…

“Patches of good form interspersed with ‘hiccup moments’”

And, for me, I think the other three sides who currently share ‘top 4’ with us, Chelsea, West Ham United & Liverpool, can all same the same thing, really.

The…‘if onlys’

·         A game that I didn’t get to see because I was on holiday at the time in…‘zero sports TV land’; our opening-day game on the first Sunday afternoon of the season away at Spurs.

Looking at their season since, you’d be excused for thinking…how the HELL did we not win that one?! And we did have 66% of the possession ‘on the day’ but we were insipid ‘up front’ to say the very least. 18 shots and only 4 heading in before being blocked / saved.

I recall listening to the whole game on the radio, at least, and as the phrase sort of goes; it was like listening to a slow car crash from our perspective. Pep has since said, on more than one occasion, that result was due to him having few of his main players available. However, when you look at our bench that afternoon, there’s an argument that it was largely stronger than the ‘starting 11’…and that they were, therefore sort of, “available” to him! Of course, he knew the how fit / ready those players were after the short space of time following the Euros but…still; that one rankles with me a little to this day because I don’t think the home side were ‘all that’ on the day, from what I listened to.

That’s definitely 3 points that ‘could have been’ in this ‘if only’ section.

·         Palace at home. Players are only human, of course, and although I still-to-this-day question whether both players grappling with each other whilst both falling to the ground constitutes Laporte being given a ‘straight red’ regardless of him being the last man; split-second decisions can change matches.

I’m taking nothing away from the London side who are having a decent season to say the very least; a team we caught ‘bang in form’ who worked hard and proved an attacking threat on the day…but that has to be seen as ‘points dropped’.

IF (that is the theme) that sending off had’ve occurred in the latter stages of the match, I think we’d be on the same points as Chelsea as I’m typing this. I can’t be sure of that, of course, but I recall that we didn’t particularly play that badly, otherwise, against an organised side that had 1 extra man for most of the game.

It didn’t help my mood either when I saw that Leicester City’s Jonny Evans only got a yellow for a similar - but FAR worse - clash in their game the same weekend!

·         Shooting boots. It’s something I’m going to move on to soon but if we’d have remembered to pack them before heading off to the London Stadium on 27^th October 2021, I’m sure we’d have put ourselves in a position where we could have progressed to another League Cup final come 27^th February 2022.

It’s an all too familiar picture, folks; 25 ‘shots in anger’ but only 7 ‘on target’ tells a story many City fans have bemoaned during our fantastic, last-few seasons and do so even more now that a certain Sergio Aguero has departed with no new striker coming in during the summer.

Still…it might be better for us that we’ve now effectively given ourselves a couple of free weeks during an otherwise busy schedule; as we face an even more challenging league campaign and attempt to improve on last season’s Champions League outcome. That’s how I’m seeing this one, this time around…

Flood or drought

A quick look at the “For” column above should have any football fan chuckling at any City fan who suggests that we have a problem scoring; that we’re going to struggle to win a trophy this season all because we didn’t buy a top striker in the summer.

And I have had one of these conversations this season already with one such City fan who, following a disappointing result, said something along the lines of, “The problem is that we just can’t score…”; where I pointed out to him the 5-0 Arsenal, 5-0 Norwich, 6-3 RB Leipzig & 6-1 Wycombe results. Since that conversation, we’ve managed to slot in 5 away at Club Bruges, 4 away at hard-to-beat Brighton and another 4 in the reverse fixture against the Belgium side; as well as games where we’ve managed “only” 2.

But here’s where I also side with those who believe that we need more ‘firepower’.

We have to be very inventive and create different ways of scoring than most sides that have ‘recognised strikers’ and as we do that, our opponents are constantly inventing ways to keep our busy attacking midfielders & wingers out.

If we get it right / “they” get it wrong, it’s goals-aplenty! But if we’re having one of those days where we’ve forgotten how to shoot and / or the ‘oppo’ gets it ‘spot on’, that’s when we need someone who knows how to get more shots ‘on target’, at least, and who may also draw defenders away from our other, attacking midfield / wing threats.

To sum up, a lot of our goals / ‘big score-lines’ often come in one game OR in two-or-three-game clusters; leaving us sometimes ‘wanting’ in other matches and resulting in dropped points / missed opportunities.

Just to finish off this goal-scoring section, I was once frowned upon by one City fan many seasons ago - even when we had the mighty Sergio firing – when I suggested that we, all too often, need 25 shots just to get 8 or so on target and that, for all the talent we have at the club both back then & now, was not really an acceptable ratio.

However, as a lifelong City supporter, I’m certainly not going to be moaning too much nor for too long when we’re talking about a statistic that already reads, this season, Played: 17, Scored: 43.

Any surprises? Any disappointments so far?

-       Having had form, last season, that was like a Covid-19 chart - starting fairly low, reaching very high figures in the middle before tailing off again; I’ve been impressed with the consistently-high performances of Joao Cancelo this season so far…and that’s without him-being in that ‘inverted right-wing back’ / midfield role that he flourished in last season. No, instead, this time the right-wing back has found exceptional form in the left-wing back position, which is something Oleksandr Zinchenko much be secretly bemoaning; especially after we didn’t move for a new left-wing back in the summer.

Joao has certainly shut me up at least – not so much because I had some early doubts about him after he seemed to take an age to settle in after we signed him but more so because of my open, long-term desires for us to sign a specialist left-wing back. Well done him and long may it continue…

-       After apparently wanting a move away in the summer because he wanted more ‘game time’…WOW Bernardo Silva is having a crackin’ season so far! He might not get the week in / week out Fantasy Football goals & assists that most would expect from such a hard-working, huge talent in such a talent-packed team – he does get his fair share though – but what he brings to the side opens up so many opportunities for his teammates. In fact, some of that could have been said about a certain David Silva and although they have slightly differing qualities; Bernardo – certainly at the moment – is like a David Silva on the drug, speed!

-       In the past, I’ve seen Kevin take a while to ‘find his radar’ / rhythm following an injury layoff before but not this long. Thankfully, I think he showed signs of getting better in our derby day victory at the weekend and I, for one, am glad…because I was beginning to wonder if there was an underlying issue along the lines of a niggly injury that he was perhaps carrying.

-       Disappointed to see Ferran Torres get a rather lengthy injury (due back around Christmas time) – I thought he was developing quite well and would have certainly given us an-often-exciting and different, attacking option.

-       Rodders is going back up in my estimation; having started off well, in my eyes, but then began to fade / disappoint a little. He really has become Mr 7.5 and quite often 8/10 and fulfils one of those roles that can go unappreciated by a lot of football fans. In fact, I get a little irritated when we’re linked with a new defensive midfielder and the article often comes with the line, “…as a replacement for the departing Fernandinho”. Hello?! Yes, we’ll need to find an additional defensive midfielder to add to the first team next season – whether that’s from within or from outside the club – but surely that will be one to compete / rotate with Rodri.

-       I know he’s not had much gametime and, once again, that might be the problem. But I can’t fail to be disappointed, once again, with the output we often see from Riyad Mahrez whenever he’s given his chance(s). I think I’m just gonna leave that one at that and hope for the best…

-       Similarly, all I’m going to say about Raheem Sterling is that I gave him an end-of-season rating, last season, of 5.5/10. This season so far, he’s on exactly the same score from me…

-       I like what Pep’s doing with Cole Palmer – keeping him close to the first time and dipping him in & out of the side at appropriate times. And he’s doing very well / looks really good whenever I’ve seen him. And what about that stat / fact?! He comes on as a late substitute for the first team at home to Burnley, walks over the bridge to play for the EDS against Leicester City’s Under 23s; scores a hattrick in that game and then 3 days later he’s in Belgium scoring 1 of 5 City goals in the Champions League! Those first 2 stats, at least, is one for a pub quiz…

I think that’s it really - I think we’re doing really quite well, so far.

I believe that this is a real statement from us too and would like to point out that we’ve already overcome some damn-right-difficult & tricky AWAY fixtures:

King Power Stadium: Win

Stamford Bridge: Win

Anfield: Draw

American Express Community Stadium / Falmer Stadium (Brighton): Win

Scaffold Trafford: Win

If we can just get those ‘orrible little niggles out of our game against so-called, ‘lesser sides’ (there’s not really such a thing in the Prem these days, I would suggest…and it also used to be the bigger games that were often over-thought by our manager and where we came unstuck) and be more deadly / accurate with our shooting; then I think we’ll be in for another season where we’ll add more silverware to our expanding trophy room.

I think we’ll do so anyway…but it would be nice to think that we can do it without fans tearing a few head-hairs out as we fluff good opportunities in front of goal.

Up the Blues!

Both defences are the key, for me…

Manyoo: A side who have attacking players who can hurt opposition sides and, annoyingly, seem to get results they might not otherwise deserve; a midfield that is largely woeful, even by their own fans’ admission, and a dodgy defence to say the very least; confounded recently by a recent injury to their summer signing, Raphael Varane.

Manchester City: A side who, without a ‘recognised striker’ most of the time, have an array of attacking midfield/wing talent who, on their day, can all-too-often steamroller sides and score goals-aplenty but who can, annoyingly, also misfire; often needing around 25 shots just to get 8 ‘on target’. We also have a defence that can largely ‘keep a steady ship’…but are-also known to have iceberg-crash moments that can unsettle the crew.

So, for me – and to repeat – both sides have attacking threat and goals in ‘em, in their own, individual styles and, therefore, I think the winner will be the one who can stay more solid at the back.

v Manyoo

Cold Trafford

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 7/11).

Fluid 4-1-5-0 / 4-6-0 / 4-3-3:

______________________________________________

 

Grealish__________________________________Jesus

___________________De Bruyne __________________

___________Foden______________Silva____________

 

_____________________Rodri____________________

Cancelo_________________________________Walker

 

___________Stones_____________Dias____________

 

 

____________________Ederson___________________

Subs: Steffen, Zinchenko, Ake, Fernandinho, Lavia, Gundogan, Palmer, Mahrez, Sterling.

Ederson has the gloves for this one.

There is some doubt over Kyle for this fixture after he took a blow to a foot towards the end of his last outing and, so, I’m just gonna have to do a 50/50 guess as-to-whether he will be in or not. I’ve ‘stuck him in there’ and, if I’m right, the rest of the back line should read Joao, John & Ruben.

Rodders is the ‘deep midfielder’; Jack, Phil, Kevin, Bernardo & Jesus are the likely attacking midfielders / wingers ahead of the Spaniard.

Zack, who has just extended his contract, is the reserve stopper; Oleksandr & Nathan are the only two defensive replacement options from the side. Fernandinho, Romeo, Ilkay, Cole, Riyad & Raheem make up the midfield / wing / attacking choices from ‘the 9’.

Notable absences:

-       Aymeric Laporte – Suspended for this game following his ‘last man’ red card in our last league outing.

-       Benjamin Mendy – Suspended by the club until further notice.

-       Ferran Torres – Out with a foot injury until around Christmas time.

Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?

Mostly…but no.

I have to say that, just like a growing number of other Manchester City fans, I’ve started to question in recent weeks just what Jack Grealish is bringing to our game.

If I was to answer that myself, I would say that he brings a high degree of skill & trickery and that he does, in fairness, already link up quite well with his teammates in terms of accurate, short-sharp passing in the ‘attacking left quadrant’…but that he appears to slow our attack down considerably on the left flank and needs to learn how to be a bit more…’Phil Foden direct’, in my humble opinion.

One fan online after the Club Bruges home victory the other day summed it up perfectly when he likened the signing of Jack to that of Rodney Marsh.

I think he needs to be pulled from the side on Saturday and have a period of re-training / re-tuning so that he can, hopefully, learn to add a bit more ‘direct dynamism’ to his array of established footwork skills.

Who would I put in his place? I think we need the intelligence of Ilkay ‘in there’ and in the middle on Saturday with Phil terrorising the home side down the left-hand-side.

Result? Well, I’ve said most of what I think in my rather lengthy subheading but what I’ll add to that is that we need our ‘big guns’ firing on Saturday. And by…‘big guns’, I’m largely giving a nod to Kevin De Bruyne – we need him back to his near-or-very-best as soon as possible.

I’m not bothered about whether their manager goes with a 5-3-2 or a 4-2-3-1 in his recent tinkering of his side as they struggle to find consistency; we have far better players than they have, overall, which should mean that they-be-more concerned about us than we are of them.

However, they do have ‘killer danger men’ in their side who can get a goal out of seemingly nothing and that’s what we have to be right on top of. Do that, and game is ours for the taking.

On a side note, Pep was in a weird mood after the Club Bruges game, I thought; seemingly not happy with this early kick-off time after our midweek Champions League match, would be my guess; as well as the guess of at least one other Sports Journalist, so I read the following day. I hope that doesn’t affect that wonderfully-bald head of his heading going into this fixture; causing him to have one of those ‘big game’ head-wobble moments.

Anyhoo…I also have to say that I’ve got a sneaky feeling that our hosts from just west of Manchester won’t end the match with 11 men, for some reason, and if I’m right; that could help our cause also.

Either way, I’m going for a Manchester City win and a 6-point gap between us and the men from M16 come-around 2:20pm.

Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result…

Prediction: Win

Result: Draw

(Pre-match blog posting from that game)

Expected weather conditions during the game: Wet ‘n’ windy, which should give the pitch a little ‘zip’. 12C is the temperature.

Some changes with Saturday in mind?

There’s absolutely no doubt that Pep will want all-3 points tomorrow night and, therefore, putting a 5-point gap between us and our visitors as well as giving us a chance, at least and depending on the other result, of going top of the group.

However, there’s no getting away from the fact that we have to improve our league results, which has seen us not win 4 of our 10 games so far; dropping 10 points from a possible 30.

And to add to the...‘looking forward to the weekend match theme' even before a ball has been kicked in our up & coming fixture; that league game is an early KO (12:30pm GMT) in a certain Trafford v Manchester derby.

v Club Bruges

Etihad Stadium

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game which for me, blog-wise, was way back when we last met tomorrow night’s visitors: 10/11).

Pep has said in his pre-match press conference that this game is more important than this-coming Saturday's match but I still believe that there will be a couple of 'tweaks' – I might be wrong, of course.

Additionally, our Spanish boss might also choose, once again, not to go with a full-12 compliment / allocation of ‘bench men’; with the EDS in action at 1:00pm (GMT) on the same day against their Club Bruges, young counterparts.

Fluid 4-1-5-0 / 4-6-0 / 4-3-3:

______________________________________________

 

Grealish__________________________________Jesus

___________________De Bruyne __________________

___________Foden______________Silva____________

 

_____________________Rodri_____________________

Zinchenko________________________________Walker

 

____________Stones____________Dias_____________

 

 

____________________Ederson___________________

Subs: Steffen, Carson, Cancelo, Ake, Laporte, Fernandinho, Gundogan, Palmer, Mahrez, Sterling.

Ed in net.

I’m going with my feeling that Oleksandr might ‘get the nod’ to start this one on the left of our defence; John to ‘come in’ ahead of Aymeric’s domestic suspension on Saturday to get some 'game time' with Ruben & Kyle making up the back-4.

Rodders to ‘sit in’; Jack, Phil, Kevin, Bernardo & Gabriel are the fluid, interchangeable attacking 5 ahead of him.

Both Zack & Scott are the reserve stoppers; Joao, Nathan & Aymeric the defensive replacement options from the side. Fernandinho, Ilkay, Cole, Riyad & Raheem are the midfield / wing / attacking guys in my predicted 10 [from 12] reserves.

Notable absences:

-       Benjamin Mendy – Suspended by the club until further notice.

-       Ferran Torres – Out with a foot injury until around Christmas time.

Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?

Yep. If I'm correct, putting Zinchenko in on the left from the start gives scope to rest Cancelo and then, if play dictates, it also allows Joao to come on for Kyle to give the England right-wing back some rest also. Similarly - and again if things are going well - I expect some early second half changes further up field ahead of Saturday's fixture; with Fernandinho, Ilkay and Cole possibly seeing some action.

Result? They need to ‘come at us’ and we have to brace ourselves for that, of course. I can see ‘em possibly breaching our defence and we might be a little shacky for a time early on after two back-to-back defeats.

However, I can see us ‘getting there in the end’. It’s a City win from me.

Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result…

Prediction: N/A

Result: N/A

Expected weather conditions during the game: Cold. Definitely warm coats for the fans and perhaps a pie / warm drink would be the order of the night. 6C dipping to 5C is the temperature and with a slight, northerly breeze that could feel more like 3 or 4. Dry though, at least.

Predictions v Club Bruges

No complacency here as we look to ‘gain some ground’ in our group stage.

There’s a blog announcement at the end on this piece…

v Club Bruges

Jan Breydel Stadium - A good, old-fashioned-looking ground.

Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:

(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 8/11).

Fluid 4-1-5-0 / 4-6-0 / 4-3-3:

______________________________________________

 

Grealish__________________________________Jesus

___________________De Bruyne __________________

___________Foden______________Silva____________

 

_____________________Rodri____________________

Cancelo_________________________________Walker

 

___________Laporte____________Dias_____________

 

 

____________________Ederson___________________

Subs: Steffen, Carson, Zinchenko, Ake, Fernandinho, Gundogan, Palmer, Mahrez, Sterling.

In addition to the starting 11 and with 12 allowed on the bench in this competition, clubs are allowed to carry 23 players with them in their respective squads. However, for what the reason(s), City have chosen only 20 to travel to Belgium for this evening’s game.

Ederson is likely to take up the gloves once again, following a forced rest at the weekend.

After some changes on Saturday, I think we’re likely to see a more-usual back-4 of Joao, Aymeric, Ruben & Kyle.

Rodders is likely to continue in his deeper-lying midfield role with a fluid, interchangeable, attacking 5 of Jack, Phil, Kevin, Bernardo & Gabriel ahead of him.

Zack & Scott are two reserve stoppers on the side; Oleksandr & Nathan the only defenders on the bench. Fernandinho, Ilkay, Cole, Riyad & Raheem make up the midfield / wing change-options in ‘the 9’.

Notable absences:

-       Benjamin Mendy – Suspended by the club until further notice.

-       John Stones – Is not in the squad for what is described by the club as…‘personal reasons’.

-       Ferran Torres – Out with a foot injury until around Christmas time.

Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?

Sure do.

Result? Tough game tonight, I reckon – they went to RB Leipzig and came away with all-3 points and held PSG at home to a 1-1 draw. In their domestic league, they sit second on goal difference only and have only been beaten once, which is 2 better than any of their rivals. From listening to Pep’s pre-match press conference, they’re a very aggressive, attacking side. Game on!

Our manager rested players at the weekend and I think that’s a big bonus for us. We’ll certainly have to be ‘on it’, as you need to be in any game not least in Europe, and I suspect we will be; we’re in decent form and have a game under our belt following another interrupting international break.

I think they’ll ‘rock us’ and give us a scare and I get the feeling that this will be a close one; a match that could have a fair number of goals in it. That being said and even though we may concede, I think we’ll come out of it with a win. That’s what I’m going for.

Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result…

Prediction: N/A

Result: N/A

Expected weather conditions during the game: A lovely evening. Dry and warm for the earlier-than-usual, 5:45pm KO (BST). A fairly strong, southerly wind will be blowing in at around 14MPH but I can’t see that causing any issues game-play wise.

This will be my last blog-posting until the beginning of November, as I’m away on a week’s holiday starting on Saturday and won’t even have an opportunity to produce a pre-match posting before our Premier League game away at Brighton & Hove Albion before I leave.

There’s a very good chance I’ll get to see that Brighton fixture soon after arriving; I won’t get to see the midweek West Ham / League Cup match, sadly, but I should be home in time to catch our home-league game against Crystal Palace. Let’s hope we’re looking at 3 wins from 3 there; 2 league wins at the very least.

Thanks, as always, for taking the time and I’ll be back writing soon enough.